Claude Vaillancourt is a lawyer, judge and former political figure in Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

. He represented Jonquière

Jonquière (provincial electoral district)

Jonquière is a provincial electoral district in Quebec, Canada that elects members to the National Assembly of Quebec. The district is located in Saguenay and includes much of the former city of Jonquière...

 in the Quebec National Assembly from 1976 to 1983 as a member of the Parti Québécois

Parti Québécois

The Parti Québécois is a centre-left political party that advocates national sovereignty for the province of Quebec and secession from Canada. The Party traditionally has support from the labour movement. Unlike many other social-democratic parties, its ties with the labour movement are informal...

.

He was born in Chicoutimi, Quebec

Chicoutimi, Quebec

Chicoutimi is one of the three boroughs of Saguenay, Quebec, Canada, and was a separate city in its own right until 2002. Chicoutimi had a population of 59,764 in the Canada 2001 Census, the last census in which Chicoutimi was counted as a separate city....

, the son of Albéric Vaillancourt and Marie-Paule Simard, and was educated in Arvida

Arvida, Quebec

Arvida is a settlement of 12,000 people in Quebec, Canada, that is part of the City of Saguenay. Its name is derived from the name of its founder, Arthur Vining Davis, president of the Alcoa aluminum company ....

, at the Collège de Jonquière and at the Université Laval

Université Laval

Laval University is the oldest centre of education in Canada and was the first institution in North America to offer higher education in French...

. Vaillancourt was admitted to the Quebec bar in 1969 and set up practice in the Jonquière

Jonquière, Quebec

Jonquière was a city on the Saguenay River in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec, Canada, near Chicoutimi. In 2002, Jonquière became an arrondissement, or borough, of the merged city of Saguenay....

 region. He served as President of the National Assembly

President of the National Assembly of Quebec

The President of the National Assembly of Quebec is the presiding officer of the National Assembly of Quebec, Canada, which is modeled after the Westminster parliamentary system...

from 1980 to 1983. Vaillancourt resigned his seat in 1983, when he was named a Quebec district court judge. He served in the Roberval district from 1983 to 1989 and in the Montreal district from 1989 to 2006.